View Point: Trugberg

A rock bastion, the Trugberg rises nestled between Jungfraufirn and Ewigschneefäld. A strange name; but how did the mountain came to this? To answer this, we have to go back to the year 1841, when on 27th August 12 men started an expedition on the Grimsel Hospice; among them the famous glaciologist Louis Agassiz and the Scottish physicist James David Forbes with four other "Ice companions" and six mountain guides. Their aim was to climb on the Jungfrau. At the bottom of the Trugberg arouse a controversy over the exact location of the Jungfrau. A guide from the Valais alleged that the top of the Trugberg was the "Fraueli-Horn", the Valais name for the Jungfrau. However the Bernese guide Jakob Leuthold denied this vehemently, calling the mountain peaks to their left as the Jungfrau. Agassiz trusted Jakob, rightly, as it turned out later. For the sake of confusion the brave mountaineers gave to the supposed "Fraueli-Horn" the name "Trugberg". By the way: the same day the group climbed successfully the Jungfrau and turned back in the evening at half past nine to the resting place near the Trugberg.